


Flying

by thewightknight



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 15:37:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11360424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewightknight/pseuds/thewightknight
Summary: Mal tries to have a nice night and a few drinks. I guess he succeeds?





	Flying

On this distant outpost where cargo was offloaded without questions and a body could relax without having to look over their shoulder, Mal settled down at a dim bar, looking to occupy his evening with a cold drink or three and the company of likeminded folks.

“Don’t you ever think about, I dunno, settling down someplace?” one of the other captains asked the bottom of his glass.

“Nope.” Mal topped him off from their pitcher. He’d lost count of how many of them they’d gone through at about five or so.

“I do. Find myself a little spot of land in some out of the way place and live out my life there, not having to worry all the time about how to keep the engines going and the crew paid and whether the next run will be my last.”

Some heads shook and some nodded around the table.

“I heard a story once, about an island, back on old Earth,” Mal said. “A paradise, really. No humans, no predators. Just birds. And after generations of living on that islands, the birds lost their ability to fly. They didn’t need it. Nothing to chase them, after all. Just easy living off the land.” He took a swallow and grimaced, the beer somehow not tasting all that good anymore.

“After a time, people came to the island, and they had rats on their ships so they brought cats along to deal with them. And when they settled on the island the rats and cats got off the boats and settled with them. And pretty quicklike, the rats and the cats started eating the birds. And these birds? Since they’d forgotten how to fly, well, that was it for them. They couldn’t get away. In just a few years, they got all wiped out.”

Mal took a sip of his beer.

“So no, I don’t think I’ll ever settle down. Never know what might happen, so I don’t wanna chance forgetting how to fly.”

That kind of put a damper on the rest of the night there. No one upped for another pitcher and one by one folks started drifting away, until Mal found himself alone in the bar. Leaving the dregs in his glass and a few extra credits for the bartender, he made his way down to where Serenity sat. Sitting down, he leaned up against her, patting her hull above his head.

“Nope. Couldn’t do it. Could never give you up. Always gotta keep flying.”

**Author's Note:**

> Husband started relating the story of the extinction of [Lyall's wren ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyall%27s_wren)to me, and my brain turned it into Mal telling a story.


End file.
